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Patent and copyright are both broken in that they reward mere firstness infinitely more than quality of implementation. They get the whole concept ass-backwards. Ideas are a dime a dozen. It's implementation and marketing where the real work lies. Any fool can have a brilliant idea, indeed we all have them every time we discover something that doesn't work as well as we would like, and in fact I had three yesterday. Probably all three have already been solved in one way or another by other people, but the fact that I don't have, or even know about, a solution implies that the solution isn't good enough or hasn't been marketed well enough. There may be plenty of possible better solutions than mine already thiught of, that the patent system is making non viable because some asshole got there *first* with their half-assed device.

The patent system is even worse than that. At least in the story in the article, the plaintiff has actually implemented *some* kind of solution, however ridiculously expensive. The current US patent system rewards trolling: *not* implementing *anything*, just sitting on the patent until some poor bastard actually bothers to think up a viable solution and produces it, then springing out to snatch a share of *their* work.

And this is the system the US is frantically, despertely attempting to foist onto the rest of the world.

eldavojohn writes "The University of Aberdeen's Oceanlab (a partner in the recent census of marine life) has discovered a new snailfish. That might not sound very exciting, unless you consider that its habitat is an impressive four and a half miles below the ocean's surface (video). If my calculations are correct, that's over ten and a half thousand PSI, or about seventy-three million Pascals. The videos and pictures are a couple years old, as the team has traveled around Japan, South America and New Zealand to ascertain the biodiversity of these depths. The group hopes to eventually bring specimens to the surface. It seems the deepest parts of the ocean, once thought to be devoid of life, are actually home to some organisms. As researchers build better technology for underwater exploration, tales of yore containing unimaginable monsters seem a little more realistic than before."

The thing that really gives me the shudders about this is the 1984-style public recantation: "We understand Nintendo's right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan's interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself -- even from fan-works with good intentions." You can just imagine the tearful, contrite speech through broken teeth...

Judge Judy is a bad choice there - she tends to go for the quick, harsh, and "obvious" (including a very strong implication that you are a fuckwit for thinking any differently) solution. That is very likely to be "don't steal songs". Do you think Judge Judy will recognize any human need for music?

If that isn't good enough, do without. Just because you want it doesn't mean *anyone* is under any obligation to make it available to you. It isn't ethics; it's the free market, stupid. There are lots of books from those in current publication to those written by authors long dead that aren't available as an eBook. Just because you want one of those in an eBook format doesn't somehow justify pirating a copy; nor does it justify pirating the book in question.
Back atcha. Just because you want money for every single copy doesn't mean *anyone* is under any obligation to give you money when they can make a copy without involving you. That would be the 'free market' in action: the natural cost of distribution is zero, and propping it up above zero--particularly with legislation, something the typical libertard otherwise equates with scabies--is the interference with the market's actions. It's not the 'pirate' (a stupid term propagated by stupid people - copyright violators do not normally interfere with commercial shipping) who is obliged to justify his action of copying, it's the copyright holder who is obliged to justify why preventing copying is a better thing for the economy as a whole. (Which can never be done, and therefore, copyright holders will tend to fall back on whining, tattling, and pulling at the skirts of the legislature.)
Grow up and quit whining that the world doesn't give you everything you want.
If you can't see which side is simply doing what the technology allows, and which side is whining that advancing technology is interfering with their vast desire for precious precious money, it's you who needs to do some growing up.

I don't know if you libertards are just unbelievably stupid or are intentionally lying, but I'm inclined to think it's the latter. The natural state of commerce, in the unregulated 'free' market, is to form monopolies of various kinds, and suppress--brutally, if need be--any and all threats to that monopoly power. The failure of government to properly restrain this tendency, thanks to billions of dollars of lobbying spent on lying to the American public (like you) to the effect that "Jesus loves rich people and wants you to be one, so you should let corporations do whatever they like" is the primary cause of the USA's present troubles. Small business is good capitalism; big business is worse than communism, because at least under communism, there's a basic pretense of working for the good of equal fellow men, rather than to further enrich people who are already richer than you or I could possibly become in a dozen lifetimes.